fast and furious

 

A Newfoundland Marten, a Blotched Tiger Salamander, a Blue Racer Snake, and a Swift Fox from 2006

The marten was once trapped for its fur.

The salamander is one of the largest in North America and likes ponds and wetlands that don't have any fish.

The blue snake, while not venomous, is aggressive and will chase you.

The swift fox now only occupies about 1/3 of its historic range.

For Sunday Stamps - endangered species

jewel

Because I don't collect creepy crawlies (and I am praying that no one posts any spiders - shudder) and I forgot I had no photos anymore (cry). So I was frantically searching through my Malaysia and Taiwan postcards thinking that's where most of the bugs stamps would be...

Then I remembered these stamps from Australia which a friend picked up for me when he was travelling. These beetles only live for between one day and two weeks. Apparently they also never lose their brilliant colours even after death, so anyone is able to see them in all their beauty in the Natural History section of Museum Victoria.

These jewel beetles were illustrated by Owen Bell. The one on the left can be found in Western Australia and the one on the right is found in Victoria and New South Wales. Each one grows to 15 - 20 mm (or in old school terms slightly less than 1") As far as I am concerned that is huge.

for Sunday Stamps - bugs and creepy crawlies

I am still working on a few 'bugs' on my new desktop, and  perhaps the most annoying one is the font size. I can increased the size on the posts as I'm typing, but once it is published it goes back to point 8. On my screen it is tiny, so tiny!

How does it look on your screens?

mysterious

 Mysterious Island

From Monaco for the 150th anniversary of Jules Verne in 1975 

To a 1961 mongoose lemur from Madagascar

For Sunday Stamps - the letter 'M'

movement

 Cycling in Munich 1972

Cross Country Skiing in Sarajevo 1984

Figure Skating in Nagano 1998

I wonder how many countries issued stamps for Tokyo 2020?

I'm going to miss watching sports that I never think about except every four years. But, we get to do it all again in 7 months for the winter games, which seems insane. But, of course it's not all over as there's still the Paralympics in  a couple of weeks. I have no stamps for those.

For Sunday Stamps - Olympics or Japan

finicky

I have missed you all! Apologies for last week.

My computer finally crashed and it took a little while getting a new one and even longer getting it up and running with transferred files.  It has been picked up today (Saturday) and I am still trying to figure it all out... the changes are at once small and great. some things have not been improved and I much prefer the old  version. but all those coders must keep on creating, I guess.

Also, I lost many of my photos in the process so have to start over with inputting my stamps and postcards.

I have chosen lacemaking as my theme this week, which is about as finicky a craft as I can think of. This example from 1976 shows the perfect posture of the artisan and the perfect mess of the bobbins she uses to create her masterpiece.

I also have this set from 1987

for Sunday Stamps - your choice